Thursday, July 14, 2011

Wednesday 07/13: From greed to fear (and will there be new QE?)

What a day! Markets were waiting for Bernanke to speak to the Congress. And like clockwork, it happened again. Ben spoke, the dollar sank and stocks rose. All because dear Ben hinted a QE3 was possible. (Do people still know what QE stands for? Maybe they think it's a ship, the Queen Elisabeth III...)
However, Fed Governor Fisher doesn't want to support more action and talks about the US debt ceiling won't stop, 08/02 will be D-day. The rally was faded soon and back to scratch...
So far this week, bulls 0 - bears 1.

Meanwhile, rating agencies are competing with eachother to downgrade countries. It's all a game to them, so it seems. Greece, Italy, Ireland... I think they forgot Spain & Portugal this week, or maybe I just missed some headlines.

The gold rally from the last weeks continues to new highs, silver is braking out of it's June range and oil is heading for 100.

Hard to stay bullish knowing all of the above, but still, today US futures rise while European stocks are being sold. Let's see what earnings season will tell us.

I got stopped out of my TZA-position in pre-market but hedged it going long TF (Russell mini-futures) for a couple of points. Then during today's rally I tried TNA long, but since the rally didn't held, I'm back to 100% cash. No need to try other positions intraday, I'll wait for Thursday's close, hopefully that will shed a light to where the market is going in the short term.